Recent advancements in technology have made most companies focus on online marketing. While websites and social media should be an integral part of every marketing plan, you can’t neglect offline promotion tools.

Brochures are an offline marketing method that can add credibility to your company. Adding them to the mix will secure that you maximize your customer base and increase your revenue.

What Is a Brochure?

A brochure is a promotional document used to distribute the information about your company to potential customers. Two most common types of brochures are:

Tri-fold brochure (single-sheet document printed on both sides and folded into thirds)

Bi-fold brochure (single sheet document printed on both sides and folded into halves)

Brochures are a good way to expand your customer base and increase the reputation of your company. Here are some reasons why having a business brochure is worth your while:

The Advantages of a Business Brochure

Increase Brand Awareness – brochures will significantly increase your brand recognition. Imagine this – a potential client finds your brochure on the windshield of his car and takes it home. Once he needs a service you are providing, he doesn’t need to go through the trouble of searching your website. He simply takes your brochure and looks at your contact information.

Eye-Catching Design – brochures are colorful and offer flexible design. You can choose the concept of each area and the placement of graphics and text. If you are not an expert in designing and marketing, hire a professional to get the best results from your business brochures.

Easy to Distribute – brochures are compact and ideal for placing on doors and windshields. You can also hand them out to passers down the street or visitors in the local mall.

Saves Time – if a customer asks for more info about your products/services, you can offer him a brochure. You can also include it with your sales material or mail them out to potential customers.

Why You Should Hire a Professional Service to Design Your Brochure

Some business owners think that they have solid computer and designing skills and that hiring a professional to design their brochure would be a waste of resources. However, top-notch marketing material will have much more success with the clients, so it is definitely a good move to invest in a professional-looking business brochure.

Here are some of the reasons why you should trust a professional to design your brochure:

·Professionals know all the tricks of the trade – a visual expert knows plenty of tricks how to make your brochure look more attractive. They might suggest using different effects on pictures and fonts that will add to a professional and elegant look of your brochure.

Professionals know all effective and trendy design layouts – designers can suggest which layout you should use or where to place fonts or pictures to create the maximum effect. They know where you should place your most popular products to attract potential clients.

Professionals are not expensive – contrary to popular belief, hiring visual designers is pretty affordable. What you want to look for is a company that has skilled and experienced designers. That way you can get the best value for money and rest assured that they will create the best possible business brochure for your company.

Final Words

A brochure with high-quality content and professional design can become an essential part of your marketing plan. Hiring a professional service to design your brochure will help you make it look more appealing. That will secure a bigger reach and turn the brochure into an invaluable marketing tool that can increase your revenue.

The real estate market in Vancouver has been getting increasingly hot. Property companies and agents throughout the city face tough competition for every client, which is why making your brand stand out should be your top priority.

Let’s take an in-depth look at Vancouver real estate branding and discover what you can do to stand out from the competition:

Find Your Specialty

Making your company unique has a lot to do with finding your specialty. There are three important questions you want to ask yourself:

Why is your agency different from other agencies?

Why should a client choose you?

What type of clients do you want to attract?

Keep in mind that it’s not only about your agency, it’s also about you as an individual. Here are some examples of the areas you can specialize in:

Local Knowledge – everybody likes a real estate agent who provides valuable information about the neighborhood. For example, you can establish yourself as an expert for local restaurants. Alternatively, you can go for the family approach and offer expert knowledge on local schools, parks, daycare center etc.

Specialize in Selling One Home Type –you can focus on a single home type – e.g. selling condos or high-end luxury homes

Specialize in Providing Services to a Single Group – focus on parents, newlyweds or senior citizens. They all have different needs and look for someone to understand their particular situation.

It might be a good idea to have every agent in your company covering different groups to cover a bigger portion of the market.

How to Transfer Your Specialty into a Company Name and Logo?

Once you’ve found your specialty, the next step in the Vancouver real estate branding is to find a way to translate it to your company’s name and logo.

Take a pen and paper and write down your idea for the company’s name and draw a sketch of the logo below it. Additionally, you can also try thinking of a slogan for your company.

Hire a Professional

You seem to have problems to find your specialty? Or you have an idea but you just come up short with thinking a name for your company? Perhaps you’re not good at drawing?

Think about hiring professionals that can help you do a perfect job with Vancouver real estate branding for your company. They will be able to breathe life into your ideas and translate them into a top-notch solution.

How Agents and Companies Can Benefit from Professional Branding Services?

Maximize Awareness – appropriate branding will get maximum results when it comes to the recognition of your brand.

Consistency – property market requires your brand to be consistent in the marketplace. It’s pretty simple, the more times a potential client notices your brand, the more likely he is to become your client and stay loyal to your company or you as an agent.

Increase Reputation – a strong brand sends a message that you are an established business or a reputable agent that knows all tricks of the trade.

Competitive Advantage – branding is an excellent way to increase your market share and attract new customers. Hiring a professional will deliver maximum results from branding, which will help you get a competitive advantage on the market.

Final Words

Branding is the most important thing you need to do when starting any business. The goal of Vancouver real estate branding should be to emphasize the uniqueness of your company compared to the competition. The process is not easy, which is why you should consider hiring a professional service to help you. That way you will be sure that your company is on the path to success.

A number of startups and business today do not invest their resources into creating an effective branding strategy. While they may argue that a lot of their time, energy and finances go into structuring branding and marketing strategies, it is just that these do not have the desired effect on the consumer. These businesses and startups are so focused on churning out the perfect product that they fail to give enough attention to individuality and creativity.

There is so much competition in the market today and as a business owner, you need to stand out. This is where that unique factor, individuality and creativity comes into play. These three aspects are essential to creating an effective branding strategy. If you want to really come up with a brand that becomes your company’s identity worldwide (Apple, Dell, Chanel), then you need to begin with a logo.

Yes, a logo is the most important part of a branding strategy. There are companies which have invested million into creating the perfect logos for their brands and today they are reaping huge benefits from that. Apple’s products are instantly recognizable from their logo which is found on each and every item created by the company. Amazon is known by their logo and so is FedEx.

Now these are some of the giants in the industry. For the small business owners and startup founders, the opportunities to capitalize on their logos are endless. While they may not have millions to shell out on logos, it doesn’t mean that they cannot have the perfect logo for their brand.

There are several design companies available which can help you create an appealing and well-crafted logo. Whether you are a budding business or large corporation, Logo Design Vancouver makes it easier for you to have that perfect design for your logo. Apart from that, people can find website layouts, web hosting services and numerous other options which can help create a prominent web presence for their companies.

Those who are looking for just logo design services are in luck. Particularly when it comes to Logo Design Vancouver, there are so many options that companies can look through. Getting that perfect and creative design for your logo is no longer a challenge. As a potential client, you can search through the portfolio of design companies to get an idea of their work. If you like anything from these portfolios, you can easily contact the company and employ their creative team to design the logo of your choice for your brand.

Design Crews is one such Vancouver based design studio that has printing, branding and web designing services to offer. The dedicated people who work at Design Crews make sure that you are completely satisfied with the end product regardless of the specifications. Whether it is a logo, an ad or a website designed to re-invent the image of the company, Design Crews has a host of highly qualified employees who will work day and night to make sure that you get what you asked for.

A logo, as simple as it may sound, is perhaps the most crucial of all elements when it comes to branding and creating an identity. A logo is something that appears first to any customer you may target. Indeed, no customer can be assured of the services or products that a company provides until they buy them. A logo, being the first candidate to be reviewed by any potential consumer, stands to be the sole point of contact between you and that customer.

Logo – A Mystical Symbol

For most of us, a logo may simply mean an icon or a work of art that does nothing more than help a company identify itself easily. However, it is more than just a name. It is something that gives a company its identity and creates its image in the minds of consumers. Just like your name is your identity, a company is represented by its Logo. Without one, no one can refer to you easily or identify with themselves.

Wondering why is it important? That’s because of the way our brain memorizes things that we see. It captures images and stores them for long. While you may forget about the company’s name, you will remember the symbol. A company needs a logo not to become noticeable but to have a differentiating factor among a multitude of other companies striving hard to emulate one another.

Nevertheless, the story does not end here. Just like your name has a meaning, a logo has to have a meaning in order to have a long-lasting effect on the consumers’ minds. This is why so many well-known organizations such as BMW, Apple and Mercedes have logos that symbolize something. The meaning is quite mystical but when someone deciphers it, the brand gets a life of its own. Let us take Amazon’s logo as an example. All of us must have heard of Amazon, the great e-commerce giant created by Jeff Bezos. Amazon’s logo is characterized by an arrow that starts from the letter A and ends at Z. This actually symbolizes that Amazon sells everything from A to Z. A more creative example would be FedEx’s logo. The E and X at the end is not actually an E and an X. If you look closely, it is an arrow that is pointing forward. This represents FedEx’s ideology of moving forward.

Therefore, logos are quite important. Why else would companies spend millions of dollars in just getting a piece of graphic design stamped on every product or service they sell.

Branding and Logo

A brand name is all a company needs to make its services and products known. Without it, no matter how good a company may be, it will cease to exist. However, merely a name cannot ensure sales; it is the quality of the offerings that makes the difference. Also important is the way a company deals with its customers, the methods adopted to produce goods and the logo that represents it to the world.Hence, a logo may not be everything, but it is definitely an important part of the entire branding process.

A logo should be consistent with your branding strategy too. Apple’s logo symbolizes the forbidden apple from the Tree of Knowledge portrayed in the Bible. This itself tells a lot about the brand. That it is about knowledge and quality that no one else has besides Apple. A logo therefore is necessary to reinforce the brand that the company is trying to sell.

Several start-ups and even large organisations are still ignoring the value of online presence. That is why they may not be experiencing the booming sales they ought to. Nowadays consumers normally decide on which products or services to go for in accordance with their online presence or rather the image the brand portrays to the end users. With current technological advancements, people spend most of their time on their mobile phones or computers. As a result, perfect online image increases an organisation’s number of clients because people tend to spend more time on your website page if it is attractive enough. This Vancouver web design company is here to solve such problems. A product of the union between a group of specialists and professionals, we are present in Vancouver to deal with designs that can help your company improve its online presence, thereby making sales that will move it to the next level.

We make essential services available such as website design, logo design, menu design, stationery design and graphic design among other types of designs. We also offer other services such as online marketing and packaging of products. What this well known branding Vancouver firm can do to your brand is simply amazing. Being one of the Vancouver website designing company that works with a team of experienced designers, we do not only make websites for our clients, but we also offer essential web solutions. We understand how important online presence is to our clients. We therefore help our clients to tell their story well via their websites. We also offer content writing in case the client is too busy to do the same. In order for your website to be effective and efficient, it is wise to go for Vancouver web design studio services.

We already have a good record on the previous works that we have set our hands on. The website designer Vancouver Company is very efficient and time saving. The process we use to design our clients’ websites is usually very fast and easy. We also give our clients an advantage of controlling their own websites. That is they can update or maintain their websites without needing external help which is usually more costly. This well known Graphic Design company in Surrey also guarantees clients maximum satisfaction. We promise to take into all minute particulars of the website into account and make sure they are done to perfection. We are the best web design coquitlam company that you can find all over Vancouver and beyond. In order for your desired website be as effective as possible, it is wise to hire the services of website designer Vancouver Company today without any further delay.

People chose fine dining restaurants to get a memorable experience. Pretty apt to say, fine dining restaurants are inevitable in making occasions “special” and robust routine days as well. Restaurants are mood-setters in terms of exquisite quality cuisine and good environment.

It is difficult to explain exactly what makes a Brand. The familiarity of the name around world is could be definitive to some perspective however, there is more to it. A symbol, name, term, design or any other factor that distinguish a vendor’s product from other business could be a definitive statement of brand. This is called Branding.

Essentials of Restaurant Branding

The fundamentals involved in a perfect brand of restaurant include;

Name

The name is the given essence of the restaurant. Emphasis on name comes with the achievement and goals while you build and perceive from it in future.

Logo

A logo is that sign which is comprehensible on global level to all lingual communities of world. Internationally, the logo is your ambassador that can make your brand strong.

Slogan

A good slogan can form your restaurant branding with a distinguished vitality.

Color Theme

Colors are crucially important to form a brand. Every famous brand comes with a definite set of warm colors which triggers hunger psychologically.

Dress and Attire

It is widely in fashion to dress your staff according to your brand theme. The impact is good and also it is a solid marketing technique.

Consumer Experience

Your brand must exactly deliver what you want to deliver your customer. The reason is what your customer feels is a part of branding strategy. Therefore your brand has to deliver exactly what you want your customer to experience.

Misconceptions for Restaurant Branding

The basic misconception is that a restaurant is a food providing business. Instead it is a business that provides branded experience. A good customer service with is a brand experience which could be enhanced with sensual experience of eating.

Restaurants need effective branding to distinguish their food and cuisines through effective customer service. They must reflect about their brand with an expressive infusion. Any restaurant that fails to deliver exactly from their branding could end up being more influenced by consumer rather than business itself.

Restaurant Branding Benefits

While a restaurant offers good food, it could be good enough until there is a plan of expansion in pipeline, the role of branding your restaurant starts from this point.

Worthwhile Value

Marketers emphasize on value of brand only which is doubled if worth of brand is balanced with value. A better-established business is intended to more brand power. Hence, they can charge for its value when they decide to franchise.

Clear Identity

Branding is a tactic when it comes to clear brand identity of your restaurant. The Customer can get exact idea of what you propose and what they can get with a perfect branding of restaurant. The theme and standard of service must touch the mark of expectations.

Commune by your Slogan

While you are up to branding your restaurant, the slogan, logo and philosophy that has to be followed by customer service personnel must come in a way to apprehend with target demographics.

Responsive Brand Message

People genuinely get an idea of food offered by any restaurant. The only thing that distinguishes restaurants is their way of communication with their customers. It could be delivering through a certain theme displayed on digital marketing with a clear brand message. This is the point where perfect branding works. The beauty of branding is it has made lenient future communication with potential customers. What we want to achieve could be perceive into customer’s mind while they totally think that they figure it out all by themselves.

A number of packaging designs have brought unique trends in this niche. The ideas whirling in designer’s brains forms customary patterns that perfectly connects with theme to form innovative designs.

Looking into most significant package design projects so far, few emerging trends have intended to be extremely prevalent in design and consumer products that have taken this niche to next level.

Luxury Of Less

Luxury of Less is a trend that portraits next generation luxury product packaging which actually doesn’t require gaudy, flashy luxury brand names. It is less reliant on lavishness giving a chic quality and simple attributed style to the luxury product. This new trend packaging design’s main characteristics are defined as;

Trend Definition

Style: Subtle

Texture: Perceptible

Color Palette: Simple and soft Pastel

Emblem: Hand drawn or graphic icons

Examples: Honor, Novelty.

Ultra Pure

Ultra Pure is a bold brand statement. It is another new trend in package designing that provides pure and minimal brand packaging system. Ultra Pure provides ultimate expression with essence and purity of brand. Mainly, the packaging identification comes with simple abstract shapes that represent product itself. There is no branding and logos present in this trend. Instead, there is only typography in simple sans style that caters both packaging and logo.

Visual Authenticity

Visual Authenticity has become current mainstream of package designing. It is highly appreciated for its totally out casted theme from established corporate package designs. It endorses consumer values that have rejected complicated conventional brands. The trend is vintage inspired with more real, direct and quality package design.

Consumers’ interests have changed with current recession-oriented period. They want more from brands that rewards their trust with real connection. This factor has influenced designers to form Visually Authenticity trend which showcase quality with skill intended to reconnect with consumers.

Trend Definition

Style: Simple, vintage inspired

Texture: Raw, hand rendered, simple illustration

Color Palette: Natural color shades

Emblem: Hand written raw or sketchy word mark

Examples: Santa Cruz, Juniper Ridge

Biobased

Biobased is a next generation trend in package design. It is technologically twisted with biologically sustained packaging material. The trend is settled to provide pure and environment friendly packaging for brands which is highly in demand. Biobased is inspired with nature that derivates with bio-tech substrate. Its goal is to reduce carbon footprint and minimize package waste.

Trend Definition

Style: Nature, Carbon Neutral,

Texture: Edible substrates of biological material.

Color Palette: Natural color shades

Emblem: Hand written raw or sketchy word mark

Examples: Dell Air-carbon plastic bags.

If you are looking for packaging design or have any further queries, simply comment below or contact us through our contact us form or tweet @designcrews. You can also email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Rebranding is not merely re-structuring the marketing plan or designing a new promotional strategy. It is a complete process, which nullifies the previous brand image. This means that you are creating a completely new brand image for an entirely newer positioning in the minds of the customers. For the successful rebranding, the process has to be taken step-by-step, considering a number of factors and developing a thorough plan.

Why need Re-branding?

Here, the question arises, why need rebranding. Well, this is simple and straight. To survive in the market, you cannot be stagnant. One needs to have a continuous touch with the changing desires of the customers. If you can successfully identify the swings and shifts in their demands, you’ll know how to respond accordingly. Historical records are full of the examples where companies and brands failed just because they couldn't keep pace with the changing mentalities and requirements through their branding strategies.

So, for a better understanding of the rebranding process, let us consider we have got to do the rebranding of a company which is a Graphic Design one.

Understanding the target audience:

The first and foremost step in the branding or rebranding process is identification of the audience. You cannot know how to talk to until you do not find out whom you are talking to. For this example, we know our most of the dealings would be solely B2B. For that we need to be competent, clear and targeted. The entrepreneurs would obviously look for the professionals to get their work done, and with our branding strategies, we have to show them that we would be the only best choice for them.

Creating a budget:

Finances are vital when you need fruitful results, since there’s nothing like a free lunch. Yeah you might come up with an argument that ideas, creativity and innovation are free. Yes, being a graphic design company, these attributes do hold significance, but at the end of the day, we need “Cash” to implement or utilize them.

Brand Positioning:

By positioning, we mean how you want your product/service to be perceived, or how do you want to be seen or taken by the target customers. While re-branding a company, a target has to be set first that what we are actually trying to achieve with this whole process and that can only be done successfully if we have identified the audience and their wants.

Core Competence, Competitive Advantage, Differentiation Advantage:

No marketing strategy is complete without properly defining these three aspects; know what your core competence is, state your competitive advantage to the potential customer and let them know how you are different and better than your competitors. It might be your print, your designs, prices, quality, professionalism, timeliness or anything. Just know what the customer wants from all these and focus!

Logo, Tagline/Slogan:

Logo design is a first impression on the target consumers. Design it carefully. A slogan is used to grab the attention and make him stop. Both of them have to enclose the whole concept of you, have to convey your message in a single glance and make sure that the goals are achieved.

If you want help with this in any way or have any further queries, simply comment below or contact us through our contact us form or tweet @designcrews. You can also drop an email atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Since the launch of World Wide Web and the concept of internet, the websites have been created for sharing information, selling services, marketing and socializing purposes. These web pages may be generated from templates or are customized.

Web templates are pre-designed web pages which only need to be filled in with relevant content and pictures. The layouts, designs, structures and interfaces are all designed in the form of HTML templates and all you have to do is to write the suitable material according to the nature of your business to create a look and feel accordingly. People normally use web templates to save their time and money that they need to invest on hiring web designers and developers.

Custom websites, contrarily, are the web pages that are self-created and self-tailored. People go for this option when they want to design a highly personalized web page or website as per their own priorities and requirements.

Both the types offer some advantages as well as some drawbacks. Let’s have a look at some of the common aspects associated with the two types of web development.

Template Websites

Custom Websites

Adaptability

The template website can be adapted to your requirements, but not as much as custom websites.

Custom websites offer far more adaptability than the template based websites. Web designers and web developers are at complete liberty to incorporate the desired and required features.

Flexibility

Template websites do not possess flexibility. Once you have chosen a design, a pattern or a sequence in the form of a template, you are bound to stick to it.

On the other hand, Custom websites are just as much flexible as adaptable. Since a website is self-created, the developer knows the coding behind and hence any kind of changes can be made into it whenever it is required.

Cost Effectiveness

Template based websites are more cost friendly as compared to custom based websites. All you have to do is to buy an economical template that fits in your needs and you are to go on your own then.

Custom based websites get you to a bit higher costs in getting a designer. But, at the end you are happy and satisfied with the work because it is custom made as per your preferences and requirements.

Singularity

There are chances that the template you have purchased had been used by any other business as well. Template designs do take you away from being unique but that’s not altogether bad. A common layout and design ends up giving a friendly experience to the user.

Nonetheless, if you do want to keep your website different and give a unique experience to your users, custom website must definitely be your choice.

Hence, no final word can be said on whether you should go for a template website or a custom built one. It all depends on your requirements, budgets and time allocated. If you have a team to do the required brainstorming on your project and have quite a lot to spend on it, you should definitely give a treat of personalization to your website, but if it is a simple, common structure, with the most conventional features and attributes, there’s no use investing in a custom website.

There are a lot of unique and appealing ways to represent information/content on web pages, and that is basically what web design is all about. Internet Marketers and SEOs believe that it is a bit hard to rank organically in search engines when websites or perhaps a target web page lacks decent amount of keyword-rich content.

Large paragraphs normally disrupts the nice flow of the site’s minimal design and left the user with heavy content that they will certainly never take the time to read. However, you can balance your desire for content heavy page smartly and can have such pages rank well with your desire for a striking and clear web page.

One of the greatest approaches to pull off a good balance is to include your text within your web page, but keep it hidden or out of sight unless a viewer requests. This is how your pages will keep crawlable content, but will remain hidden for the majority of time.

In this blog post, we will discuss four universal tips that will assist you develop user-friendly design for content-heavy websites.

Rollovers/Hovers are a great way to pair dazzling visual content/image with some informative text. This is how you can include a small portion of text that will display when rolling over a particular image. On mouse hover, images become translucent and text is layered on top. This approach can be used for ecommerce type pages that contain a catalog of product images. In this case, you can avail the opportunity of adding keyword rich content against each image; this can help your product-category page rank well in search engines.

Adding a rotating carousel or image slider can bring in a huge amount of interesting and appealing fixed units on your web page. An image carousel is actually a conveyer belt that carries and displays alternate “slides” and messages. The amount of content that you can include in carousel is only limited by the number of slides that you decide to include.

Click to Expand is the most appealing feature that you can use for content heavy page. It is just like navigational tabs, it keeps content hidden until a user clicks a “more” or “details” call to action.

This is an interesting and useful feature because it facilitates internet marketers to keep content hidden; it is like a teaser that teases readers with a small, initial snippet of copy. This is a remarkable and useful way to attract visitors to get them to review and read remaining part of copy.

Unlike cloaking and any other shady SEO techniques, all these features and functions are safe and legitimate ways to add copy in a more delicate style.

Do you know other methods for including large copies of text in a tactful way? Let us know in the comments below or email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Is it their beauty or the colors? Maybe it’s because they explain what the company does…or maybe not?

While these things are considered during a logo design project, none of them are particularly important. Some great logos are beautiful and some (according to many) are downright ugly. Few of them suggest what the company does but others don’t really bother. If you look at the colors, there really are no rules.

So, if none of these things are responsible for making a logo great, what is?

It’s distinctiveness.

That is the single, most important trait of any professional logo. If it truly stands out from the rest and makes the brand unique and memorable, while respecting some basic design principles, it qualifies as great.

Clients all over the world look for and pay for that kind of work, and logo design professionals know how to do exactly that.

How do they do it, you wonder?

Phase 1: Client discovery

A great logo is an expression of the company values, culture and people. Think of it as an employee whose main job is to be distinctive and represent the company in the best possible way. What would he look like? How would he feel like? Is he a boss or the guy next door? Is he loud and cheerful or wise and calm?

You cannot answer questions like these without making wrong assumptions.

That’s why professionals kick-off logo design projects with some good, quality conversations with the client. They aim to learn as much as possible about the company culture, values and the way they do business, and then inject that message into the logo design.

Phase 2: Industry discovery

Once you get to know the client, you’ll need to find out more about:

• who is the logo for (the audience)

• who you’re up against (the competition)

Knowing the audience will give you some clues as to where you need to take the logo, style wise. For example, if you’re working for a teenage market, you’ll probably need something mainstream, loud and catchy. But if your teenagers are wunderkinds who dig computer programming, you may need to think harder.

That’s why you need to ask the client to tell you as much as possible about the customers they are catering to — who are they, where they live, what they buy, how they dress. The more you know about these target audience, the easier it will be for you to create a logo they can fall in love with.

The second, and perhaps more important part of this process is researching your client’s competition. You need to see who else is out there and how their logos look, so you avoid doing something similar, or worse — doing something identical. Remember, your work has to set the client apart from everybody else, so ask the client to give you a list of key competitors you need to consider.

Phase 3: Application discovery

This phase is about answering one simple question: how and where will the logo be used most of the time? Different usage of the logo is typically referred to as “logo application.”

This is really essential for the logo design process because it tells the designer what can and cannot be done from a design point of view.

Airline companies need their logos visible on tail fins - an important thing to consider before jumping to the design stage.

For example, airline companies demand a very specific type of logo application, where a logo has to be placed on the tail fin of the airplane. That is a very tall and narrow space to work with, so designers will have to avoid ideas that do not fit there, or develop separate graphics that will be used for that purpose.

Another example are web-based companies, who do most of their business online. In this case, designers might decide to use full RGB spectrum for the logo, because digital devices have no problems with that and it might help the logo stand out. On the other hand, this would be a very bad choice for a company who does business offline and has to print a lot of stuff.

Phase 4: Sketching (a lot)

Did you know that some design schools ask the students to come up with exactly 100 ideas before they decide on the right one? The reason is simple — the only way to separate the good from the bad is to have a lot of things to pick from.

Because of this simple truth, professional identity designers usually sketch dozens of logo ideas during the brainstorming phase, then pick only a handful to present to the client.

As hard as it may sound, this really isn’t that lengthy of a process. Sketching a logo with a pen and paper takes less than a minute; with all the thinking in between, you can easily sketch 10 in under an hour.

Never get fooled by thinking your first ideas are your best.

Sketch, then sketch some more, so you can really separate the wheat from the chaff.

That’s how professionals do it.

Phase 5: Draft designs

After you’re done with the sketching process, pick 5-7 of your best ideas and create some initial designs in Illustrator or other vector based apps. As a reminder, the best ideas are not the nicest looking ones or the safe ones which look like everything else out there — they are ideas which have the chance to make your client truly stand out in the market.

Create some quick designs in black and white, then present them to the client for initial review. Don’t bother with adding color and detail — keeping things simple will put the focus on the ideas themselves instead of tiny details, which is much more desirable at this stage.

Your main objective is to get client feedback on your rough ideas and identify the ones they’d like to refine.

Phase 6: Refinement

The refinement stage is the longest one because it involves a lot of back and forth regarding the improvements and changes for the presented logo drafts.

Sometimes the client will pick just one idea for refinement — sometimes he’ll run two or three in parallel just to see where they go.

But here’s where the fun happens.

Colors, details and various bells and whistles are added, changed and thrown away during logo refinement stage. Various application mockups are developed to see how the logo will perform in different situations — sometimes a logo detail on paper doesn’t really work well on a building.

Ultimately, the final logo is chosen, approved and prepared for identity development.

Phase 7: Identity development

As you can imagine, a great logo is not the end but the beginning of a great brand identity.

Business stationery, signage, vehicle branding and many other communication tools have to be designed so they all send a unified brand message. Identity development makes that happen.

During this stage, all important logo applications are designed and standardized in a brand guidelines book, known simply as “brand book.”

Identity devlopment takes the logo further and defines visual standards for all commonly used marketing and promotional tools.

This book shows how to work with the logo and prescribes standard layout, color, imagery and typography guidelines for common marketing materials. This way companies make sure their identity is protected and guided by the same principles even when they switch designers or agencies.

Note while the identity development stage is optional, it is usually offered as a part of the total identity design package — most clients want to standardize at least business stationery and signage.

How you can benefit from this process

As you can see, the professional logo design process is a rather serious business involving seven distinct stages, all with an aim to create a unique, memorable symbol that adds value to the company and makes it stand out in the market.

However, it’s important to understand that this isn’t something reserved for the big agencies or designers — everybody can benefit from following these steps, and clients will appreciate you more because of it.

So for your next logo design contest, start by taking things seriously. Don’t stop at the brief — ask the client as much as you can about his business, his audience, competitors and logo application needs. Do some sketching and share your early designs with the client. Refine based on what you hear. Offer to design a brand book once you win a competition, and make use of 1-to-1 invoicing.